M1 AM Delaware River/Bay
Monday, 14 November 2005: 8:00 AM - 11:40 AM in Ballroom 1

(TOT-1117-645678) Atmospheric Deposition and Volatilization of PCBs in the tidal Delaware River.

Totten, L¹, Rowe, A¹, Panangadan, M¹, ¹ Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

ABSTRACT- As part of the TMDL effort to characterize the losses and loadings of PCBs to the tidal Delaware River, air monitoring stations were set up at several sites along the River to provide atmospheric PCB measurements to be used in modeling atmospheric deposition. Also, simultaneous air and water sampling was conducted on several cruises on the River to provide data for modeling the air-water exchange of PCBs. The results demonstrate that volatilization of PCBs with 2-5 chlorines is the single largest loss process for PCBs in the River. Atmospheric deposition represents only about 5% of the total loads of penta-PCB to the River, but is large enough to exceed the TMDL by an order of magnitude. Efforts to track down PCB sources will also be discussed.

Key words: atmospheric, exchange, dry deposition, wet deposition